Exclusive: Trump admin reveals plan to lock 3,000 migrant children in massive new detention facility

The Trump administration is proposing a sprawling shelter facility that can detain up to 3,000 unaccompanied migrant children who arrived in the U.S. without a parent or guardian.

Officials are seeking potential contractors and service providers for the project as federal agencies escalate efforts to detain and remove tens of thousands of people from the country, including children, while effectively closing off the U.S.-Mexico border to people seeking asylum.

Unaccompanied immigrant children — currently housed in more than 150 shelter facilities across the country — could be held inside an “emergency influx facility” staffed with physicians, teachers and other “humanitarian care” providers as the administration responds to “surges” at the U.S.-Mexico border, according to a call with prospective service providers on Tuesday.

The proposed facility must hold up to eight children per room, and up to eight children would share one toilet, shower and sink. Recreation areas would not necessarily need to be outside. The facility also would need to be surrounded by an eight-foot perimeter fence.

Officials have not yet determined a location for the project but appear ready to move quickly once contracts are awarded by the end of this year. “This gives us speed,” Administration for Children and Families official Gilbert Canales told potential providers Tuesday. “We’re looking to see whatever you got.”

The facility would also need to be within 30 miles of a hospital, and officials also are pushing for locations within 60 miles to an airport and 30 miles to a pediatric care facility, behavior health providers, dentists and diagnostic imaging and laboratory services.

The government typically requires at least one acre of recreation facilities per 100 children, but that “does not need to be a single continuous plot,” according to Canales.